Her pick-up had been organized with military precision. Shepherd held his reclaimed prize, purring loudly in arrogant triumph as he carried her through the subterranean halls towards his den.

It seemed a waste of noise. The purr was not soothing Claire. She was past comfort as the worm inside her swelled, each breath hurt, corrupted and hated.

The sound of the deadbolt, the finality of the moment, all this went past her as she fought so very hard not to show what she was feeling—not to give him the pleasure of acknowledging he had the power to hurt her again. But he wouldn’t stop touching. He even pried her fingers from where she clutched at her chest so he might rub the heat of his palm where she was so very clearly pained.

Shepherd encouraged the meltdown because he knew what was tearing at her insides. “We will start afresh,” he crooned, his huge hands pulling at the layers she was dressed in, stripping her clothing just as he stripped away her freedom. “My little mate.”

Green eyes flew open, full of outrage, full of all the seething vehemence she should have screamed at him two weeks prior. “Mate? MATE? You are less than nothing to me! A deceiving monster I abhor. You are depraved; you disgust me! What you did was unforgivable. I HATE YOU!”

Even as she screamed, even as she beat against him, he stroked, he hushed.

Claire ranted, the stream of vileness bouncing off grey walls, until screams turned to great soul-wrenching sobs. She cried so very hard she could hardly draw breath. She begged him to kill her, cursed him to hell for tempting her from the ice, and only found the softness of the mattress under her back his answer to her pleas. Those great hands were everywhere, tracing the scrapes, the stitches in her knee, exploring every bruise, until Shepherd commenced his inspection with a long possessive stroke of his fingertips along the outline of his still healing claiming marks.

There seemed to be no end to the agony of the cancerous tether inside her. It twisted like an outraged alligator, tearing out her organs. She had her eyes shut tight, trying to will it all away, until naked lips came to her chest, to the very spot that had been so corrupted. Claire began to fight back, shrieking like a banshee. There was no stopping his penetration, or the throaty groan that escaped him at feeling her tight heat gripping his cock. Shepherd suckled her breasts, ran his teeth lightly over her neck, tried to kiss her mouth between licking away the tears and restraining her flailing.